


Valr, Vindr, Vargr

by Sun_bee



Category: Valheim (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:28:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sun_bee/pseuds/Sun_bee
Summary: Orix, the Red Wolf, and Vaenvind find themselves cast adrift together in Odin's realm of exiles.
Kudos: 1





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Orix is my creation. Vaenvind is my friend's.
> 
> Valr (val-ur)  
> \- the slain, the battle-fallen, the glorious dead.
> 
> Vindr (vind-ur)  
> \- the wind, the breeze, the moving air.
> 
> Vargr (varg-ur)  
> \- the wolf, the beast, the wicked thing.

At the base of a tree where the roots plunge into the earth, three women sit. Mother sings a song of them as she combs his growing hair. He has deep brown hair that is the colour of the iron-rich soil after a spring rain. She uses a fine-tooth whale bone comb that was her mother's, and her mother's mother's. When she returns to the earth he will place it beside her so that she may comb her long and beautiful hair once again. 

They call the tree Yggdrasil. The three women are gardeners and they pour water from their well onto the earth where all men grow.. Urd watches over the things that have already passed. Verdani sees all the things that are happening. Skuld keeps a tally of the debt that all people must one day pay. 

His mother sings of the women and their tree. She sounds more melancholy with every verse that floats through the dancing embers of the fire. Leaves sprout in their garden: Urd plants the seeds of a boy and he grows into a great tall ash, Verdani winds a bright red ribbon around its trunk, and Skuld carves a wolf in the bark of its boughs. The man-tree grows around the ribbon and the wolf snaps his jaws to catch the tail of it. 

In the end, the wolf gobbles up every inch of the ribbon. In the end, the bark-wolf swallows the boy whole. In the end, the man and the wolf are one. 

Mother's name is Angraboda. 

In the stories of the gods, Angraboda births the wolf that will someday swallow the sun. 


	2. 2

Rodinnvargr. They cry out the name they gave him and the wind howls in the sails. The longship doesn't slow. Every man and woman, viking until winter comes, rows with every fibre of their strength. The beat of the oars has set them five ship-lengths ahead of the pack. 

_Ro_ _dinnvargr_. Their cries are louder than any war drum. He sits at the top of the oaken wolf's head, the prow of the ship large enough to hold him aloft as he stares down the arrow's shaft. Their voices carry the shot as he lets it fly. Fifty paces ahead on the shore, it skewers the throat of the shouting commander. Blood sprays in a high arc and paints the shields stacked tight together in a near-unbreakable wall.

They do not slow. _Ro_ _dinnvargr_. They do not falter. _Ro_ _dinnvargr_. Not until he bellows the order and the oars are dragged in to keep them from breaking. Every soul braces when the keel hits the shore. The bow of the longship carves the beach in two. Their speed carries them so far up the sand that the shield-wall falters. Warriors scatter. He throws himself from the prow of the ship and hits the sand where it’s stained with spilled blood. 

It’s the same red painted across his mismatched eyes, running through his beard, coating the tips of his arrows. It’s not battle cries and bashed shields that herald his pack’s descent on the beach. It’s howls of rage and delight. 

Rodinnvargr. They follow him, the _bloodied wolf._


	3. 3

The thought-bird tilts its head. Hugin considers the sight of him prone on the grass. There are towering stones around them and the vast black shadow of a woman's wings has long since faded from overhead. A breeze sways the tops of the colossal birch trees that have never been troubled by a boat-builder's axe. Deer bark in the distant forest. The meadow is a comfortable place to rest.

"This isn't a hall," he says dumbly. He lifts a hand to feel the soft ends of his hair. The matted blood and mud is gone. There are no tangled locks or leather ties. He lays down in the grass with the sun on his face and a flax shirt that just barely itches on his back. 

"Had you expected an invitation to High One's hall?" Hugin asks without asking. More and more he finds he doesn't need to listen to hear the bird talk. 

"Any hall would do," he complains. The raven laughs, hollow and croaking. It's the only sound but the wind that echoes in the open field of scrub and wildflowers.

"There'll be no ale in curved horns for you, red wolf. You have not earned Valhalla," Hugin barks. "Murderers must pay for their seat at the feasting table." 

A titter of noise leaves the bird's beak. The sky is turning a deep, deep red. It's the kind of sky that used to fill fjords in summer when all there was to see was the mountains and the sea and the sky, and nothing between them all. The only thing that breaks the horizon is the impossible shape of Yggdrasil's bough. It's taller than any mountain he's ever seen. It glows like Bifrost used to glow above Norse shores. But it will not carry him away from here. Its branches lead to nowhere.

"There's no place for you at the All-father's side." The raven meets his eyes and for a moment, they could almost be human. " _Yet_."


	4. 4

"I'll fucking kill you!" He swings the flint-head axe high and hard and it swoops through the air to smash into the trunk of a bystanding beech. The raven is cackling and long gone, its wings carrying it up and into the air before his anger could even make it down his arm. 

Hugin's brother is a little bastard. The thought-bird is wise and observant, condescending in a way he can tolerate. The memory-bird is mocking and cruel; Munin reminds him of things he doesn't want to remember. Now he sits at the top of a tree and squawks down at the raging wolf.

"Answer me or I'll pluck you and eat you!" He storms to the tree and wrenches the axe free. The tree creaks from the blow he didn't mean to deal, but he can't hit the bird so he'll keep hitting the poor tree. It's not the right shape for anything. He can always burn it for warmth, because this realm is so very cold at night. 

"Will you, will you, will you now!" Munin flaps its wings and bounces up and down with every shuddering strike against the tree's base. Its chittering call is grating him down to the bone. "Who will answer if I am plucked and roasted and eaten! Who!" 

"Fuck you," he roars up at the wretched bird, and keeps swinging the axe. Over and over. Chunks and chunks fly into the air. Leaves flutter to the ground. 

"Dog! Angry dog!" 

The tree doesn't begin to creak for hours. He's exhausted, and he remembers that he hates that he can be dead but still exhausted. His shoulders burn and sweat has nearly blinded him as it rolls down his brow but at last the vast beech tree screams and breaks, and falls. 

"No! SHIT!" He drops the axe and falls to his knees. He watches the raven fly away. There's nothing he can do to stop the entire tree tilting and falling and crushing the shed, his workbench, his stores of fuel. 

He keels over in the grass and can't do anything but stare at the sky. 

After a while, the raven lands on his chest and titters. It pecks at the end of his braided hair. 

"Stupid dog," Munin snickers, and answers him at last. "Of course you're not alone here."


	5. 5

His eyes don't match. They've been that way as long as he can remember, but he can't remember much before this place. Sometimes he dreams of a pair of hands holding his cheeks. In the dream, they're calloused and snow-bitten. Blunt nails brush through his beard and a low and loving voice admires the colours in his eyes. 

That voice says the odd shades make them think of Hati and Skoll. They are wolves that take turns chasing the sun and moon across the sky, but they'll never catch their prey.  _ The red wolf already has them. I see them here. _ A thumb brushes both his cheeks in turn.  _ Sun and moon. If you ever father children, let's name them Mani and Sol. _

On the mornings he wakes from that dream he hauls a bucket of water from the river and stares into it. He gazes at his reflection in the persistent silence of dawn when the moon has fallen and the sun hasn't yet crawled up into the sky. They're still trapped in his eyes. One is blue and the other is so pale of a green that when the sunshine finds it, it flashes a glimmering gold. 

That dream is a plague and it's rotting his mind. If he could open his skull and let the ravens pluck it out like a worm, he would. It's tempting. He's dead, after all; he might survive it.

Or he might just wake up again, whole and mended, and he might have dreamed it all anew.

He throws a pebble into the bucket. His reflection snarls and scatters. 


	6. 6

Fifty-two sunrises come and go before he arrives at the realisation that he can do whatever he damn well wants. There is no sign of another human soul and even the ravens have deserted him for near a week. 

He stands on the beach, staring blankly at the storm that's threatening his precarious little house, and wonders if even a bolt of lightning could free him from this in-between place. It would make for a good story. The tale of Rodinnvargr, a beast so fierce that only Thor's hammer could fell him. The skalds would sing it well. 

If only there were any skalds. He decides to burn his house down before Thor can strike it. 

Rain hammers the shore the moment the sun goes down but it's not enough to quench the flames that are already raging. He pulls down the frame, the window slats, the rush-reed roof. Every plank and peg is tossed on the bonfire. Thick black smoke blots out any stars that dare to shine through the storm clouds. 

His hands are torn up with splinters by the time the last of it collapses. The sound is like a crack of thunder all of its own. He's frozen by the rain and thawed by the inferno, and he howls at the sky as the entire thing burns down to embers. His laughter drowns in the tempest. 

When morning comes he's without a shirt because he threw that on the fire too. He sits on the sand, still drenched from the rain. He doesn't fear catching a chill. He can do what he pleases because dead things cannot die. 

He can do what he wants because that raven is a liar. He's sure now that no one else is coming.


	7. 7

The storm passes and the wind doesn't die. It howls across the tops of the beech trees and swirls them around like they're nothing more than reeds. The fish in the cove are scattered into the deep. All that's left of his house is steaming ruin, charcoal and splinters. 

"This ground is terrible, anyway," he says to the wind. 

The wind whips a wave up to drench his feet in answer. He stares at his sodden boots for a long, empty moment. 

"Fuck you," he tells the breeze. 

The zephyrs swirling over the water turn towards the shore again. They blow his hair and chill his skin, setting themselves against him. Or at the very least, not with him. 

"Don't be cruel to the wind," Hugin calls from overhead. It hasn't landed by him for days because the last time it came near, he  _ almost _ skewered the wretched scavenger with an arrow. He has recalled the way to make a bow and resolved to make the raven sorry for it. 

"Whyever not?" He calls up to the raven dryly. He sucks his teeth and folds his arms, staring at the horizon. It's in that moment his eyes set on something strange and out of place. 

A little dot of white has not shimmered on the horizon. It persists, growing larger. His hands fall to his sides. Another minute passes. He fears it's only a dream. He shouts at the raven. He wades into the sea and out again, shouting. The little sail bobs atop the swelling waves, bright against the turquoise sea. He has not gone mad.

It's a boat. 

"If you are cruel to the wind," the raven caws, "She will never blow in your favour." 


	8. 8

In the stories of the gods, the sun is a woman named Sol. 

Sol does not know where her home should be, so she wanders. Horses draw her chariot and she is driven across the sky again and again and she counts the days and years for the men below. 

At the end of those days, in the distant and inescapable time of Ragnarok, the most terrible wolf will break his bonds and swallow her whole. 

She feels like Sol in this moment. The world is ending; the Red Wolf has come to their seaport town. She's small enough to hide behind a stall of nets and lines that will never be sold because today is the day that Rodinnvargr swallows the sun. He has come down from the north with his pack and these Norse are used to a world without light. Where they live, she was once told, the low winter sun abandons them entirely. 

She couldn't imagine a world without light. Now she will have to because the Red Wolf has left a trail of her kin from the beach to the mead hall. Their blood stains his hair, his hands, his sword; she hates him because he will not grant them the deceny of dedicating their blood to the All-father. 

The town Elderman limps through the market square. She watches him walk into the grinning jaws of the wolf. Rodinnvargr stands like he has already claimed the place for his own, shoulders askew and chin held high. His sword is unsheathed and held at his side. There's a tension in the air like ice too thin to step on, but the Elderman is moving anyway. 

"How much for you to move on?" The old man asks. His back is crooked but he glares up at the wolf anyway. 

"How much do you have?" The Red Wolf sneers. It's the answer the village feared. Murmurs ripple through the market square. Women turn and hurry out of sight. They graps their children and in the space of a stifled gasp, she remembers that no one is left to grasp her. 

She hears the Elderman's head thump into the ground and a man spitting on the twitching body. Resolve forms a shell in her heart and it feels like it'll never beat again. She decides that she will not be Sol. She will not be swallowed whole by this wolf. 

She runs like the wind. 


End file.
